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Monday, April 22, 2013

Want to be a diamond?

If you do, you're going to be under a lot of pressure and you'll have to withstand a lot of heat because that's how diamonds are formed. And if you want to be a human diamond, really want it, the Universe will make you into one. And how it will do that will be by blasting you with heat and putting you under the most intense pressure. 'Well, that doesn't sound like fun,' you say. Well, if you wanted to be an ice cube, it would have to be below freezing, wouldn't it? If you wanted to boil, you'd have to be 212 degrees.
You want to be a diamond, you're gonna have heat and pressure. Johnny Cash has a song called "Chunk of Coal." Here's a lyric:

The formation of natural diamonds requires very high temperatures and pressures. These conditions occur in limited zones of Earth's mantle about 90 miles (150 kilometers) below the surface where temperatures are at least 2000 degrees Fahrenheit (1050 degrees Celsius)

And so, still want to be a diamond? Buried 90 miles deep, seared by 2000 degree temperatures.
If you don't want that, that's no sin. But if you do want it, know what you're getting into. This from U.S. Open tennis winner Andy Roddick:

There's not one person at this tournament who doesn't have pressure on him. If I didn't want the pressure, I'd go make sandwiches somewhere.